Manta Rays in Hawaii (The Big Island)

I recently visited Hawaii (Big Island) on a vacation.  Normally, when I travel, I get great pictures that capture the experience.  This trip was different, because some of the best experiences were underwater.  After reading a bit about how difficult it is to capture good underwater pictures, I decided not to even try. 

One of the most enjoyable things I did was take the Night Manta Ray Experience trip with an outfitter called Sea Quest at Keauhou Bay near Kona.  The way it works is that you take a short boat trip out to the spot, which was ultimately not that far, say ~100 meters, from a rocky shoreline adjacent to the Sheraton Kona Resort that we stayed at.  The guides jump out of the boat and set up a floating platform with huge bright lights illuminating the dark sea below.   The guests then hold onto the platform and float on the surface of the ocean using snorkel gear to view below.  The manta rays come to feed on plankton that are attracted to the light.

Our first sighting of a manta ray was exhilarating.  The beautiful monstrous creature swam straight up out of the darkness of the depths with mouth wide open to catch all the plankton it could.  If not foretold that manta rays are harmless, my first instinct would have been to swim away from an approaching sea creature with a greater than 10 foot wingspan weighing more than 1000 pounds.  At the last second, the manta ray turned flat and upside-down and glided inches from our faces to skim up the plankton near the surface.  The rays have specialized nerve cells on their skin giving them the ability to sense electrical fields and they seemed to use that to glide close, but not touch us as we watched them.  We were also given strict instructions not to touch them as to not disrupt the protective slime coating on their skin.

According to the guides, the manta rays learn the behavior of swimming in loops near the tour lights to feed on the plankton.  They observe that young rays don't quite grasp the approach at first.  It is not a natural behavior since they can normally feed on plankton on the surface continuously during the day.

Since I didn't have a camera with me, I can't share video of my experience, here is a video from YouTube: